ASP.net is one of the most widely used languages in web developing of its many advantages, so there are many lessons that explain its basics, so it should be an intelligent tutoring system that offers lessons and exercises for this language.why tutoring system? Simply because it is one-one teacher, adapts with all the individual differences of students, begins gradually with students from easier to harder level, save time for teacher and student, the student is not ashamed to make mistakes, and (...) more. Therefore, in this paper, we describe the design of an Intelligent Tutoring System for teaching ASP.net to help students learn ASP.net easily and smoothly. Tutor provides beginner level in ASP.net. Finally, we evaluated our tutor and the results were excellent by students and teacher. (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers? We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on 30 central philosophical issues. This article documents the results. It also reveals correlations among philosophical views and between these views and factors such as age, gender, and nationality. A factor analysis suggests that an individual's views on these issues factor into a few underlying components that predict much of the variation in those views. The results of a metasurvey (...) also suggest that many of the results of the survey are surprising: philosophers as a whole have quite inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of philosophical views in the profession. (shrink)

Philosophy of biology is often said to have emerged in the last third of the twentieth century. Prior to this time, it has been alleged that the only authors who engaged philosophically with the life sciences were either logical empiricists who sought to impose the explanatory ideals of the physical sciences onto biology, or vitalists who invoked mystical agencies in an attempt to ward off the threat of physicochemical reduction. These schools paid little attention to actual biological science, and as (...) a result philosophy of biology languished in a state of futility for much of the twentieth century. The situation, we are told, only began to change in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a new generation of researchers began to focus on problems internal to biology, leading to the consolidation of the discipline. In this paper we challenge this widely accepted narrative of the history of philosophy of biology. We do so by arguing that the most important tradition within early twentieth-century philosophy of biology was neither logical empiricism nor vitalism, but the organicist movement that flourished between the First and Second World Wars. We show that the organicist corpus is thematically and methodologically continuous with the contemporary literature in order to discredit the view that early work in the philosophy of biology was unproductive, and we emphasize the desirability of integrating the historical and contemporary conversations into a single, unified discourse. (shrink)

This paper aims at helping trainees to overcome the difficulties they face when dealing with Arduino platform by describing the design of a desktop based intelligent tutoring system. The main idea of this system is a systematic introduction into the concept of Arduino platform. The system shows the circuit boards of Arduino that can be purchased at low cost or assembled from freely-available plans; and an open-source development environment and library for writing code to control the board topic of Arduino (...) platform. The system is adaptive with the trainee’s individual progress. The system functions as a special tutor who deals with trainees according to their levels and skills. Evaluation of the system has been applied on professional and unprofessional trainees in this field and the results were good. (shrink)

Deference principles are principles that describe when, and to what extent, it’s rational to defer to others. Recently, some authors have used such principles to argue for Evidential Uniqueness, the claim that for every batch of evidence, there’s a unique doxastic state that it’s permissible for subjects with that total evidence to have. This paper has two aims. The first aim is to assess these deference-based arguments for Evidential Uniqueness. I’ll show that these arguments only work given a particular kind (...) of deference principle, and I’ll argue that there are reasons to reject these kinds of principles. The second aim of this paper is to spell out what a plausible generalized deference principle looks like. I’ll start by offering a principled rationale for taking deference to constrain rational belief. Then I’ll flesh out the kind of deference principle suggested by this rationale. Finally, I’ll show that this principle is both more plausible and more general than the principles used in the deference-based arguments for Evidential Uniqueness. (shrink)

Online shaming is a subject of import for social philosophy in the Internet age, and not simply because shaming seems generally bad. I argue that social philosophers are well-placed to address the imaginal relationships we entertain when we engage in social media; activity in cyberspace results in more relationships than one previously had, entailing new and more responsibilities, and our relational behaviors admit of ethical assessment. I consider the stresses of social media, including the indefinite expansion of our relationships and (...) responsibilities, and the gap between the experiences of those shamed and the shamers’ appreciation of the magnitude of what they do when they shame; I connect these to the literature suggesting that some intuitions fail to guide our ethics. I conclude that we each have more power than we believe we do or than we think carefully about exerting in our online imaginal relations. Whether we are the shamers or the shamed, we are unable to control the extent to which intangible words in cyberspace take the form of imaginal relationships that burden or brighten our self-perceptions. (shrink)

Memory technologies are cultural artifacts that scaffold, transform, and are interwoven with human biological memory systems. The goal of this article is to provide a systematic and integrative survey of their philosophical dimensions, including their metaphysical, epistemological and ethical dimensions, drawing together debates across the humanities, cognitive sciences, and social sciences. Metaphysical dimensions of memory technologies include their function, the nature of their informational properties, ways of classifying them, and their ontological status. Epistemological dimensions include the truth-conduciveness of external memory, (...) the conditions under which external memory counts as knowledge, and the metacognitive monitoring of external memory processes. And lastly, ethical and normative dimensions include the desirability of the effects memory technologies have on biological memory, their effects on self and culture, and their moral status. Whilst the focus in the article is largely philosophical and conceptual, empirical issues such as the way we interact with memory technologies in various contexts are also discussed. We thus take a naturalistic approach in which philosophical and empirical concepts and approaches are seen as continuous. (shrink)

While first-person methods are essential for a science of consciousness, it is controversial what form these methods should take and whether any such methods are reliable. I propose that first-person experiments are a reliable method for investigating conscious experience. I outline the history of these methods and describe their characteristics. In particular, a first-person experiment is an intervention on a subject's experience in which independent variables are manipulated, extraneous variables are held fixed, and in which the subject makes a phenomenal (...) judgement about the target experience of the investigation. I examine historical and contemporary examples of first-person experiments: Mariotte’s demonstration of the visual blind spot, Kanizsa’s subjective contours, the Tse Illusion, and investigations of the non-uniform resolution of the visual field. I discuss the role that phenomenal contrast plays in these methods, and how they overcome typical introspective errors. I argue that their intersubjective repeatability is an important factor in their scientific status, however, it is not the only factor. That they control for extraneous factors and confounds is another factor which sets them apart from pseudoscience (e.g., the perception of auras), and hence another reason for classifying them as genuine experiments. Furthermore, by systematically mapping out the structure of visual experience, these methods make scientific progress. Praises of such first-person experimental approaches may not always be sung by philosophers and psychologists, but they continue to flourish as respectable scientific methods nevertheless. (shrink)

This study aims to use the Asian knowledge model “APO” as a determinant for performance excellence in universities and identifying the most effecting factors on it. This study was applied on Al-Azhar University in Gaza strip. The result of the study showed that (APO) model is valid as a measure and there are four dimensions in the model affecting significantly more than the others (university processes, KM leadership, personnel, KM outputs). Furthermore, performance excellence produced though modernizing the means of education, (...) curriculum development, technology and flexibility in the organizational structure. The study recommends expanding the usage of (APO) model, enhancing the role of knowledge leadership, technology, organizational flexibility, sharing culture and incentive systems that encouraging innovation. (shrink)

Although they are continually compositionally reconstituted and reconfigured, organisms nonetheless persist as ontologically unified beings over time – but in virtue of what? A common answer is: in virtue of their continued possession of the capacity for morphological invariance which persists through, and in spite of, their mereological alteration. While we acknowledge that organisms‟ capacity for the “stability of form” – homeostasis - is an important aspect of their diachronic unity, we argue that this capacity is derived from, and grounded (...) in a more primitive one – namely, the homeodynamic capacity for the “specified variation of form”. In introducing a novel type of causal power – a „structural power‟ – we claim that it is the persistence of their dynamic potential to produce a specified series of structurally adaptive morphologies which grounds organisms‟ privileged status as metaphysically “one over many” over time. (shrink)

This article argues that if panpsychism is true, then there are grounds for thinking that digitally-based artificial intelligence may be incapable of having coherent macrophenomenal conscious experiences. Section 1 briefly surveys research indicating that neural function and phenomenal consciousness may be both analog in nature. We show that physical and phenomenal magnitudes—such as rates of neural firing and the phenomenally experienced loudness of sounds—appear to covary monotonically with the physical stimuli they represent, forming the basis for an analog relationship between (...) the three. Section 2 then argues that if this is true and micropsychism—the panpsychist view that phenomenal consciousness or its precursors exist at a microphysical level of reality—is also true, then human brains must somehow manipulate fundamental microphysical-phenomenal magnitudes in an analog manner that renders them phenomenally coherent at a macro level. However, Sect. 3 argues that because digital computation abstracts away from microphysical-phenomenal magnitudes—representing cognitive functions non-monotonically in terms of digits—digital computation may be inherently incapable of realizing coherent macroconscious experience. Thus, if panpsychism is true, digital AI may be incapable of achieving phenomenal coherence. Finally, Sect. 4 briefly examines our argument’s implications for Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory theory of consciousness, which we contend may need to be supplanted by a theory of macroconsciousness as analog microphysical-phenomenal information integration. (shrink)

Buildings energy consumption is growing gradually and put away around 40% of total energy use. Predicting heating and cooling loads of a building in the initial phase of the design to find out optimal solutions amongst different designs is very important, as ell as in the operating phase after the building has been finished for efficient energy. In this study, an artificial neural network model was designed and developed for predicting heating and cooling loads of a building based on a (...) dataset for building energy performance. The main factors for input variables are: relative compactness, roof area, overall height, surface area, glazing are a, wall area, glazing area distribution of a building, orientation, and the output variables: heating and cooling loads of the building. The dataset used for training are the data published in the literature for various 768 residential buildings. The model was trained and validated, most important factors affecting heating load and cooling load are identified, and the accuracy for the validation was 99.60%. (shrink)

Although contemporary metaphysics has recently undergone a neo-Aristotelian revival wherein dispositions, or capacities are now commonplace in empirically grounded ontologies, being routinely utilised in theories of causality and modality, a central Aristotelian concept has yet to be given serious attention – the doctrine of hylomorphism. The reason for this is clear: while the Aristotelian ontological distinction between actuality and potentiality has proven to be a fruitful conceptual framework with which to model the operation of the natural world, the distinction between (...) form and matter has yet to similarly earn its keep. In this chapter, I offer a first step toward showing that the hylomorphic framework is up to that task. To do so, I return to the birthplace of that doctrine - the biological realm. Utilising recent advances in developmental biology, I argue that the hylomorphic framework is an empirically adequate and conceptually rich explanatory schema with which to model the nature of organisms. (shrink)

Our question is this: What makes an act one of entrapment? We make a standard distinction between legal entrapment, which is carried out by parties acting in their capacities as (or as deputies of) law- enforcement agents, and civil entrapment, which is not. We aim to provide a definition of entrapment that covers both and which, for reasons we explain, does not settle questions of permissibility and culpability. We explain, compare, and contrast two existing definitions of legal entrapment to commit (...) a crime that possess this neutrality. We point out some problems with the extensional correctness of these definitions and propose a new definition that resolves these problems. We then extend our definition to provide a more general definition of entrapment, encompassing both civil and legal cases. Our definition is, we believe, closer to being extensionally correct and will, we hope, provide a clearer basis for future discussions about the ethics of entrapment than do the definitions upon which it improves. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the role of measuring and evaluating performance in achieving the objectives of control and the performance of the job at the Islamic University in Gaza Strip. To achieve the objectives of the research, the researchers used the descriptive analytical approach to collect information which is the questionnaire that consisted of (22) phrases were distributed to three categories of employees of the Islamic University (Faculty Members and Their Assistants, Members of the Administrative Board, Senior Management). A (...) random sample of (314) employees was selected and 276 responses were retrieved with a recovery rate of 88.1%. The Statistical Analysis Program (SPSS) was used to enter process and analyze the data. The results of the research showed a positive role between measuring and evaluating the performance and achieving the objectives of the control of performance in the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, faculty and their assistants, and members of administrative board). The researchers also recommended a number of recommendations, most notably the provision of an appropriate level of the elements of the control systems today through the modernization and continuous development of performance measures and the need to provide the physical and financial resources necessary to continue the development and achievement within the university, to expand the development of technology in the various activities of the university through the construction of a complete and integrated system to support supervision systems in the university to suit the size of the university. The researchers also recommended following up and reviewing the performance measures and work to modify them in line with the mission and the goals of the university that it seeks to reach. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to identify the requirements of computerized Management Information Systems and their role in improving the quality of administrative decisions in the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The authors used the descriptive analytical method and the questionnaire method to collect the data. (247) questionnaires were distributed on the study sample and (175) questionnaires were collected back with a recovery rate of (70.8). The study showed a number of results, the most important of which (...) are: There exist a role for computerized management information system requirements in improving the quality of administrative decisions in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. This result is due to the existence of the support and attention by the senior management in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education by 65.06%, the physical requirements available for the use of computerized Management Information Systems are available by (72.19%), and the software requirements for the use of computerized Management Information Systems are available at 67.74%. The results found that the human requirements available for the use of computerized Management Information Systems are available at (68.33%). The results showed that the organizational requirements that assist in the use of information systems are available at (64.19%). There are no statistically significant differences between respondents' responses to the role of computerized management information system requirements in improving the quality of administrative decisions in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education attributable to the variables(Gender, academic qualification, age, career level), while there are statistically significant differences in the role of computerized management information system requirements in improving the quality of administrative decisions in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education due to variable years of service. The study concluded that the Ministry of Education and Higher Education is able to cope with the external environmental changes rapidly and the limited time available for the collection and analysis of information. This means that administrative information systems should be used by increasing the approval of senior management on Management Information Systems in making their decisions, and to involve the employees in making any change and keep abreast of technical developments and try to use external bodies to advise in the field of computerized information systems, and work to increase coordination between the different departments of the ministry. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new argument for the safety condition on knowledge. It is based on the contention that the rejection of safety entails the rejection of the factivity condition on knowledge. But, since we should maintain factivity, we should endorse safery.

A new theory that naturalizes biological function is explained and compared with earlier etiological and causal role theories. Etiological theories explain functions from how they are caused over their evolutionary history. Causal role theories analyze how functional mechanisms serve the current capacities of their containing system. The new proposal unifies the key notions of both kinds of theories, but goes beyond them by explaining how functions in an organism can exist as factors with autonomous causal efficacy. The goal-directedness and normativity (...) of functions exist in this strict sense as well. The theory depends on an internal physiological or neural process that mimics an organism’s fitness, and modulates the organism’s variability accordingly. The structure of the internal process can be subdivided into subprocesses that monitor specific functions in an organism. The theory matches well with each intuition on a previously published list of intuited ideas about biological functions, including intuitions that have posed difficulties for other theories. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new argument against Richard Foley’s threshold view of belief. His view is based on the Lockean Thesis (LT) and the Rational Threshold Thesis (RTT). The argument introduced here shows that the views derived from the LT and the RTT violate the safety condition on knowledge in way that threatens the LT and/or the RTT.

Plagiarism detection is the process of finding similarities on electronic based documents. Recently, this process is highly required because of the large number of available documents on the internet and the ability to copy and paste the text of relevant documents with simply Control+C and Control+V commands. The proposed solution is to investigate and develop an easy, fast, and multi-language support plagiarism detector with the easy of one click to detect the document plagiarism. This process will be done with the (...) support of intelligent system that can learn, change and adapt to the input document and make a cross-fast search for the content on the local repository and the online repository and link the content of the file with the matching content everywhere found. Furthermore, the supported document type that we will use is word, text and in some cases, the pdf files –where is the text can be extracting from them- and this made possible by using the DLL file from Word application that Microsoft provided on OS. The using of DLL will let us to not constrain on how to get the text from files; and will help us to apply the file on our Delphi project and walk throw our methodology and read the file word by word to grantee the best working scenarios for the calculation. In the result, this process will help in the uprising the documents quality and enhance the writer experience related to his work and will save the copyrights for the official writer of the documents by providing a new alternative tool for plagiarism detection problem for easy and fast use to the concerned Institutions for free. (shrink)

Samuel Alexander was a central figure of the new wave of realism that swept across the English-speaking world in the early twentieth century. His Space, Time, and Deity (1920a, 1920b) was taken to be the official statement of realism as a metaphysical system. But many historians of philosophy are quick to point out the idealist streak in Alexander’s thought. After all, as a student he was trained at Oxford in the late 1870s and early 1880s as British Idealism was beginning (...) to flourish. This naturally had some effect on his philosophical outlook and it is said that his early work is overtly idealist. In this paper I examine his neglected and understudied reactions to British Idealism in the 1880s. I argue that Alexander was not an idealist during this period and should not be considered as part of the British Idealist tradition, philosophically speaking. (shrink)

Abstract: This study aims to identify the level of creativity in the University of Palestine from the point of view of the employees, as the researchers used the descriptive and analytical method, through a questionnaire distributed to a sample of employees at the University of Palestine, where the size of the study population is (234) employees, and the size of the sample (117) employees, of which (90) employees responded. The study reached a set of results, the most important of which (...) are: A high degree of creativity from the employees 'point of view, and the study confirmed that there were no differences in the level of creativity at the University of Palestine from the Employees point of view, according to demographic variables. The study presented a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: The need for universities to enhance creativity. (shrink)

We argue that any strong version of a knowledge condition on intentional action, the practical knowledge principle, on which knowledge of what I am doing (under some description: call it A-ing) is necessary for that A-ing to qualify as an intentional action, is false. Our argument involves a new kind of case, one that centers the agent’s control appropriately and thus improves upon Davidson’s well-known carbon copier case. After discussing this case, offering an initial argument against the knowledge condition, and (...) discussing recent treatments that cover nearby ground, we consider several objections. One we consider at some length maintains that although contemplative knowledge may be disconnected from intentional action, specifically practical knowledge of the sort Anscombe elucidated escapes our argument. We demonstrate that this is not so. Our argument illuminates an important truth, often overlooked in discussions of the knowledge-intentional action relationship: intentional action and knowledge have different levels of permissiveness regarding failure in similar circumstances. (shrink)

It is often argued that oppression reduces freedom. I argue against the view that oppression is wrong because it reduces freedom. Conceiving oppression as wrong because it reduces freedom is at odds with recognizing structural cases of oppression, because (a) many cases of oppression, including many structural ones, do not reduce agents’ freedom, and (b) the type of freedom reduction involved in many structural instances of oppression is not morally objectionable. If the mechanisms of oppression are sometimes indistinguishable from benign, (...) or even ineluctable, processes of social shaping, arguments that oppression is objectionably freedom-reducing risk implausibly suggesting that socialization itself is objectionably freedom-reducing. I show how three strategies for explaining how oppression reduces freedom either fall into the trap of overgenerality, or end up appealing to values other than freedom to avoid it. I conclude by suggesting that oppression might be better thought of as an affront to equality. (shrink)

Feminist socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy make the presence of idealized social conditions necessary for autonomy. I argue that such conceptions cannot, when applied under nonideal conditions, play two key feminist theoretical roles for autonomy: the roles of anti-oppressive character ideal and paternalism-limiting concept. Instead, they prescribe action that reinforces oppression. Treated as character ideals, socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy ask agents living under nonideal ones to engage in self-harm or self-subordination. Moreover, conceptions of autonomy that make idealized social conditions (...) a requirement of autonomy yield the conclusion that oppressed agents are appropriate objects of paternalism. (shrink)

The testimonia concerning weight in early Greek atomism appear to contradict one another. Some reports assert that the atoms do have weight, while others outright deny weight as a property of the atoms. A common solution to this apparent contradiction divides the testimonia into two groups. The first group describes the atoms within a κόσμος, where they have weight; the second group describes the atoms outside of a κόσμος, where they are weightless. A key testimonium for proponents of this solution (...) is Aëtius 1.3.18. It apparently denies weight as a property of the atoms, and supposedly describes the atoms when they are outside of a κόσμος. I argue against this interpretive solution by demonstrating, first, that Aëtius 1.3.18 does not deny that weight is a property of the atoms. Second, I argue that the report does not describe the atoms when they are outside of a κόσμος. Although these are largely negative conclusions, I contend that we are not left without a solution to the present interpretive difficulty. Once our testimonia concerning weight in early Greek atomism are examined thoroughly, it is clear that there is no conflict among them. (shrink)

Early in the eleventh of his Fifteen Sermons, Joseph Butler advances his best-known argument against psychological hedonism. Elliott Sober calls that argument Butler’s stone, and famously objects to it. I consider whether Butler’s stone has philosophical value. In doing so I examine, and reject, two possible ways of overcoming Sober’s objection, each of which has proponents. In examining the first way I discuss Lord Kames’s version of the stone argument, which has hitherto escaped scholarly attention. Finally, I show that Butler’s (...) stone does something important, which I have not found previously discussed. Butler’s stone blocks an inference, persuasive to many people, which purports to show that we intrinsically desire only pleasure. (shrink)

In computer science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), sometimes called machine intelligence, is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals. Computer science defines AI research as the study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals. Deep Learning is a new field of research. One of the branches of Artificial Intelligence Science deals with the creation of theories and algorithms that (...) allow the machine to learn by simulating neurons in the human body. Most in-depth learning research focuses on finding high-level methods. The strippers analyze a large data set using linear and nonlinear transformations. The method of deep learning is used in the detection of several diseases including blood cell diseases and their classification using the radiography of blood cells to help decision makers to know the type of blood cell and its associated diseases and the results will be presented in detail and discussed. This thesis is using python language and deep learning to detect blood cell diseases and their classifications. The proposed deep learning model was trained, validated and the tested. The accuracy of proposed model was 98.00%. (shrink)

Given the sheer vastness of the totality of contemporary human knowledge and our individual epistemic finitude it is commonplace for those of us who lack knowledge with respect to some proposition(s) to appeal to experts (those who do have knowledge with respect to that proposition(s)) as an epistemic resource. Of course, much ink has been spilled on this issue and so concern here will be very narrowly focused on testimony in the context of epistemological views that incorporate evidentialism and internalism, (...) and which are either reductivist or non-reductivist in nature. Also, as the main question about testimony addressed here is whether or not testimony can provide any basic justification at all, attention will be narrowly focused on the simple case where one is presented with testimony that something is the case from only one source and on one occasion. It turns out that there are some seriously odd epistemic features of such appeals to expertise that arise both for those who intend to accept internalism, evidentialism and reductivism about justification by testimony and for those who intend to accept internalism, evidentialism and non-reductivism about justification by testimony. (shrink)

Whether perceptual experience represents high-level properties like causation and natural-kind in virtue of its phenomenology is an open question in philosophy of mind. While the question of high-level properties has sparked disagreement, there is widespread agreement that the sensory phenomenology of perceptual experience presents us with low-level properties like shape and color. This paper argues that the relationship between the sensory character of experience and the low-level properties represented therein is more complex than most assume. Careful consideration of mundane examples, (...) like looking at a coin from an oblique angle, show that the low-level properties represented in experience do not necessarily figure in the sensory character of the experience. Furthermore, the sensible properties invoked when characterizing the sensory character of a perceptual experience are not necessarily included in the sensible properties represented in a perceptual experience. On this basis it is argued that perceptual experience has a disunified metaphysics, consisting in distinct sensory and cognitive components. The account is developed in relation to existing unified and disunified accounts, and discussed in terms of its implications for cognitive penetration, the reliability of introspection, the transparency of experience, and cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

This essay explores the topic of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly called “Multiple Personality Disorder”) with special attention to such Quadrophenia masterpieces as “Dr. Jimmy” and “The Real Me.” A number of major philosophical questions arise: Can two or more “persons” really inhabit the same body? How can we hold Dr. Jimmy morally responsible for the reprehensible actions of Mr. Jim? Wouldn’t it be wrong to do so if they are really different people? What is it to be the “same” person (...) over time? Does Dr. Jimmy really have free will? The focus is on the much discussed and important notions of personal identity, free will, and moral responsibility. (shrink)

Commentators almost universally agree that Locke denies the possibility of thinking matter in Book IV Chapter 10 of the Essay. Further, they argue that Locke must do this in order for his proof of God’s existence in the chapter to be successful. This paper disputes these claims and develops an interpretation according to which Locke allows for the possibility that a system of matter could think (even prior to any act of superaddition on God’s part). In addition, the paper argues (...) that this does not destroy Locke’s argument in the chapter, instead it helps to illuminate the nature of it. The paper proceeds in two main stages. First, Locke denies that matter can produce thought. A distinction between two senses of “production” shows that this claim is compatible with the existence of thinking matter. Second, Locke denies that God could be a system of randomly moving particles. Most commentators take this to mean that such a system could not think. But Locke is better interpreted as denying that such a system could have the wisdom and knowledge of God. (shrink)

In common with traditional forms of epistemic internalism, epistemological disjunctivism attempts to incorporate an awareness condition on justification. Unlike traditional forms of internalism, however, epistemological disjunctivism rejects the so-called New Evil Genius thesis. In so far as epistemological disjunctivism rejects the New Evil Genius thesis, it is revisionary. -/- After explaining what epistemological disjunctivism is, and how it relates to traditional forms of epistemic internalism / externalism, I shall argue that the epistemological disjunctivist’s account of the intuitions underlying the New (...) Evil Genius thought experiment is at best incomplete. As presented, therefore, epistemological disjunctivism is unable to accommodate the core guiding intuitions of epistemic internalism. Given the stated aim of not being revisionary on this score, the view is at a dialectical disadvantage over the traditional forms of epistemic internalism the position is meant to replace. Unfortunately, therefore, at present, the impasse between internalism and externalism remains. (shrink)

In this article I address a puzzle about one of Francis Hutcheson’s objections to psychological egoism. The puzzle concerns his premise that God receives no benefit from rewarding the virtuous. Why, in the early editions of his Inquiry Concerning Virtue (1725, 1726), does Hutcheson leave this premise undefended? And why, in the later editions (1729, 1738), does he continue to do so, knowing that in 1726 John Clarke of Hull had subjected the premise to plausible criticism, geared to the very (...) audience (mainly Christian) for whom Hutcheson’s objection to egoism was written? This puzzle is not negligible. Some might claim that Hutcheson ruins his objection by ignoring Clarke’s criticism. To answer the puzzle we must consider not only Hutcheson’s philosophy but also some theological assumptions of Hutcheson’s time. (shrink)

In bioethics, the predominant categorization of various types of influence has been a tripartite classification of rational persuasion (meaning influence by reason and argument), coercion (meaning influence by irresistible threats—or on a few accounts, offers), and manipulation (meaning everything in between). The standard ethical analysis in bioethics has been that rational persuasion is always permissible, and coercion is almost always impermissible save a few cases such as imminent threat to self or others. However, many forms of influence fall into the (...) broad middle terrain—and this terrain is in desperate need of conceptual refining and ethical analysis in light of recent interest in using principles from behavioral science to influence health decisions and behaviors. This paper aims to address the neglected space between rational persuasion and coercion in bioethics. First, I argue for conceptual revisions that include removing the “manipulation” label and relabeling this space “nonargumentative]influence,” with two subtypes: “reason-bypassing” and “reason-countering.” Second, I argue that bioethicists have made the mistake of relying heavily on the conceptual categories themselves for normative work and instead should assess the ethical permissibility of a particular instance of influence by asking several key ethical questions, which I elucidate, that relate to (1) the impact of the form of influence on autonomy and (2) the relationship between the influencer and the influenced. Finally, I apply my analysis to two examples of nonargumentative influence in health care and health policy: (1) governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) trying to influence the public to be healthier using nonargumentative measures such as vivid images on cigarette packages to make more salient the negative effects of smoking, and (2) a physician framing a surgery in terms of survival rates instead of mortality rates to influence her patient to consent to the surgery. (shrink)

(...) . (shrink)

Some recent work by philosophers of mathematics has been aimed at showing that our knowledge of the existence of at least some mathematical objects and/or sets can be epistemically grounded by appealing to perceptual experience. The sensory capacity that they refer to in doing so is the ability to perceive numbers, mathematical properties and/or sets. The chief defense of this view as it applies to the perception of sets is found in Penelope Maddy’s Realism in Mathematics, but a number of (...) other philosophers have made similar, if more simple, appeals of this sort. For example, Jaegwon Kim (1981, 1982), John Bigelow (1988, 1990), and John Bigelow and Robert Pargetter (1990) have all defended such views. The main critical issue that will be raised here concerns the coherence of the notions of set perception and mathematical perception, and whether appeals to such perceptual faculties can really provide any justification for or explanation of belief in the existence of sets, mathematical properties and/or numbers. (shrink)

Chimpanzee language studies have generated much heated controversy, as Roger Fouts can attest from firsthand experience. Perhaps this is because language is usually considered to be what truly distinguishes humans from apes. If chimps can indeed be taught the rudiments of language, then the difference between them and us is not as great as we might have thought. It is a matter of degree rather than kind, a continuity, and our species is not so special after all. The advantage of (...) this continuity thesis, as Fouts has emphasized, is that it conforms to the general tenets of evolutionary theory, and fits well with the evidence from paleontology and genetics that suggests that apes and humans are close cousins. It also .. (shrink)

Vice epistemology, as Quassim Cassam understands it, is the study of the nature, identity, and significance of the epistemic vices. But what makes an intellectual vice a vice? Cassam calls his own view “Obstructivism” – intellectual vices are those traits, thinking styles, or attitudes that systematically obstruct the acquisition, retention, and transmission of knowledge. -/- I shall argue that Cassam’s account is an improvement upon virtue-reliabilism, and that it fares better against what I call Montmarquet’s objection than its immediate rivals. (...) Nevertheless, I contend that it does not go far enough — Montmarquet’s objection stands. -/- I conclude that either the objection needs to be answered in some other way, or else proponents of Obstructivism need to explain why their account of the nature of the intellectual vices does not have the counterintuitive consequences it appears to have. Alternatively, another account of the nature of the intellectual vices needs to be sought. (shrink)

Coordination is a key problem for addressing goal–action gaps in many human endeavors. We define interpersonal coordination as a type of communicative action characterized by low interpersonal belief and goal conflict. Such situations are particularly well described as having collectively “intelligent”, “common good” solutions, viz., ones that almost everyone would agree constitute social improvements. Coordination is useful across the spectrum of interpersonal communication—from isolated individuals to organizational teams. Much attention has been paid to coordination in teams and organizations. In this (...) paper we focus on the looser interpersonal structures we call active support networks, and on technology that meets their needs. We describe two needfinding investigations focused on social support, which examined four application areas for improving coordination in ASNs: academic coaching, vocational training, early learning intervention, and volunteer coordination; and existing technology relevant to ASNs. We find a thus-far unmet need for personal task management software that allows smooth integration with an individual’s active support network. Based on identified needs, we then describe an open architecture for coordination that has been developed into working software. The design includes a set of capabilities we call “social prompting”, as well as templates for accomplishing multi-task goals, and an engine that controls coordination in the network. The resulting tool is currently available and in continuing development. We explain its use in ASNs with an example. Follow-up studies are underway in which the technology is being applied in existing support networks. (shrink)

This essay examines how, in the early twentieth century, ontological arguments were employed in the defense of metaphysical idealism. The idealists of the period tended to grant that ontological arguments defy our usual expectations in logic, and so they were less concerned with the formal properties of Anselmian arguments. They insisted, however, that ontological arguments are indispensable, and they argued that we can trust argumentation as such only if we presume that there is a valid ontological argument. In the first (...) section I outline the history of this metalogical interpretation of the ontological argument. In the subsequent sections I explain how Royce and Collingwood each developed the argument, and how this impacted their respective conceptions of both logic and metaphysics. (shrink)

Investigating an actual case that occurred in a New York state hospital where an Orthodox Jewish patient’s legal proxy demands that the clinicians and hospital administrators should provide aggressive treatment with all available technological resources for the seemingly brain-dead patient with a medically futile condition. The authors argue that a health care policy or regulation should be developed to limit patient’s access to technology in critical care. Otherwise, we will be allowing society to issue a carte blanche to religious autonomy (...) by technology abuse. It is argued that religious autonomy should be restricted when its demand exhibits apparent logical absurdity and/or goes against the common survival of the entire population. (shrink)

In Gennaro (2016), I had originally replied to Fred Adams and Charlotte Shreve’s (2016) paper entitled “What Can Synesthesia Teach Us About Higher Order Theories of Consciousness?,” previously published in Symposion. I argued that H.O.T. theory does have the resources to account for synesthesia and the specific worries that they advance in their paper, such as the relationship between concepts and experience and the ability to handle instances of ‘pop-out’ experiences. They counter-reply in Adams and Shreve (2017) and also raise (...) further objections to H.O.T. theory which go well beyond the scope of their 2016 paper. In this paper, I offer additional replies to the points they raise in Adams and Shreve (2017). (shrink)

MILLIANISM and DESCRIPTIVISM are without question the two most prominent views with respect to the semantics of proper names. However, debates between MILLIANS and DESCRIPTIVISTS have tended to focus on a fairly narrow set of linguistic data and an equally narrow set of problems, mainly how to solve with Frege's puzzle and how to guarantee rigidity. In this article, the author focuses on a set of data that has been given less attention in these debates—namely, so-called predicative uses, bound uses, (...) and shifted uses of names. The author first shows that these data points seem to favor a DESCRIPTIVIST view over a MILLIAN view, but the author then introduces an alternative view of names that not only provides a simple and elegant way of dealing with the data, but also retains rigidity without becoming subject to the problems raised by Frege's puzzle. This is the view that names are variables, also called VARIABILISM. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the level of promotion of entrepreneurship in the technical colleges in Palestine. The analytical descriptive method was used in the study. A questionnaire of 41 items was randomly distributed to the technical colleges in the Gaza Strip. The random sample consisted of (275) employees from the mentioned colleges, and the response rate were (74.5%). The results of the study showed that the technical colleges achieved a high level of promotion of entrepreneurship with a relative weight (...) of 73.45%. The results of the study showed that there is a high level of promotion of entrepreneurship (risk, preparedness, proactive competition, innovation orientation) in the technical colleges in Gaza Strip. The field of competition came in first place with a relative weight of 76.65%. In the second place came the field (the trend towards innovation) and relative weight (74.96%). In the third place came the field of pre-emptive preparedness with a relative weight of 74.07%. In the fourth and last place came the field of risk and a relative weight of 68.39%. The results confirmed that there are statistically significant differences in the promotion of entrepreneurship in the technical colleges in Gaza Strip due to the college variable in favor of UCAS. The results confirmed that there is no statistically significant relationship in the promotion of entrepreneurship in technical colleges in Gaza Strip due to the variable level of employment. The researchers suggest a set of recommendations, the most important of which is to draw the attention of the technical colleges to the importance of promoting entrepreneurship, because of their role in reducing the problem of unemployment, the importance of linking technical education and promoting entrepreneurship to the Palestinian society in general and Gaza Strip in particular. The importance of urging decision-makers in technical colleges to promote interest in leadership and to put their own courses in all technical education programs in these colleges, as well as enhancing the technical, technological and technical capabilities of technical education and keeping pace with the latest international standards by providing the necessary material resources. There is a need to urge researchers to conduct further studies of the future which deal with the same variables of the current study in the field of entrepreneurship and applied to other sectors. (shrink)

What endogenous factors contribute to minority (Red Queen) or majority (Red King) domination under conditions of coercive bargaining? We build on previous work demonstrating minority disadvantage in non-coercive bargaining games to show that under neutral initial conditions, majorities are advantaged in high conflict situations, and minorities are advantaged in low conflict games. These effects are a function of the relationship between (1) relative proportions of the majority and minority groups and (2) costs of conflict. Although both Red King and Red (...) Queen effects can occur, we further show that agents’ increased initial propensity toward conflict advantages majorities. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the traditional interpretations of Kant’s Formula of a Law of Nature from recent attacks leveled by Faviola Rivera-Castro, James Furner, Ido Geiger, Pauline Kleingeld and Sven Nyholm. After a short introduction, the paper is divided into four main sections. In the first, I set out the basics of the three traditional interpretations, the Logical Contradiction Interpretation, the Practical Contradiction Interpretation and the Teleological Contradiction Interpretation. In the second, I examine the work of Geiger, Kleingeld and (...) Nyholm: these three commentators reject the traditional interpretations entirely, but I argue that this rejection is ill-founded. In the third and fourth, I take a detailed look at Furner’s work, work in which he seeks to revise (rather than reject) the traditional interpretations. I argue that, despite his more modest aims, Furner’s revision is also ill-founded. (shrink)